Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence

Post by AwfulCaptain » Wed, Jan 18, 2017, 8:44 AM UTC

bjourne wrote: post #117

djsumdog wrote: post #32

Seven years is still a long time for whistle blowing. I'm glad to see she is still getting released though. It's important to note commuting the sentence is not a pardon. Chelsea will still have this conviction for the rest of her life. I know there is a lot of controversy with Manning compared to Wikileaks et. al. as far as not redacting documents or using a discriminating news source to filter them. Still, I oppose…

> I oppose state secrets and the Hillary e-mails are actually very chilling when you start reading through them. Weren't they from the DNC leak? The DNC is not affiliated with the US state. I read some of the mails, and I found nothing chilling so I'm curious to know what chilling mails you found.

Post by SilasX » Wed, Jan 18, 2017, 8:53 AM UTC

danenania wrote: post #561

l33tbro wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you please elaborate on this? I recently had dinner with a friend in intelligence, who was trying to convince me that Snowden was in bed with Russia from the get-go, and that the 90% of the leak had nothing to do with privacy concerns. I took his opinions with a grain of salt given his background, but also couldn't refute due to being relatively unfamiliar with the Snowden saga.

Every bit of the leak was about mass surveillance--how could it not have to do with privacy concerns? The "in bed with Russia" thing is just a smear. No one has produced any evidence of this, and it's really hard to make it match up with how everything unfolded.

Post by i_don_t_know » Wed, Jan 18, 2017, 9:04 AM UTC

CoryG89 wrote: post #291

uxp wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specifically, one cannot be pardoned or have a sentence commuted of a crime one has not been convicted of. Snowden has not been convicted nor even tried for any crime. It's impossible for Obama to do anything about his situation.

This is not true. The courts found that a president can pardon a supposed crime before charges have even been filed, as well as any time before or after trial/conviction. This was the case with Ford's pardoning of Nixon, as well as Carter's pardoning of all those who avoided the draft during the Vietnam war.

Post by akjainaj » Wed, Jan 18, 2017, 10:23 AM UTC

wtbob wrote: post #602

adrienne wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manning is a woman, not a guy. It is fucking disgusting how many people here want to misgender her.

> Manning is a woman, not a guy. No, no he's not. He has never had, nor will he ever have, a period. He will never worry about ovarian cancer. His medical prognosis will be most like that of an average man than that of an average woman for any particular issue. He's not experienced the fundamental biological issues which all women experience, and he never will, while he has experienced, and will continue to experienc…

Post by cygx » Wed, Jan 18, 2017, 10:59 AM UTC

bluehex wrote: post #635

dcposch wrote: post #528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's becoming increasingly common. Personally I think esoteric pronouns like "ve" are a silly idea that won't catch on, but I like the idea of using "they" as a gender neutral way to refer to one or more people. It's a straightforward expansion of the current usage: as a gender neutral way to refer to two or more people.

My problem with "they" is that it's overloading the plural pronoun and using it like a singular. This can cause confusion, for example, it makes the comment we're discussing a bit hard to read when in one sentence "they" means Manning and in the next sentence "they" means the government.